Riverside has made city landmarks of four of its trees, and each one has a name attached. Eliza Tibbets planted the Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree in 1873; it now lives in a 22-foot insect-screen tent. The Chicago White Sox planted a redwood in Low Park in 1914, 400 metres away. Theodore Roosevelt planted a palm on Victoria Avenue in 1903. And a sycamore on a median island near Fairmount Park is a landmark nobody has explained. Together they make a short drive across the city, with the first two an easy walk apart.
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Washington Navel Orange (Citrus x sinensis 'Washington') · 150 years · Arlington Heights, Riverside
Riverside keeps its most famous tree in a tent. Since June 2019 the Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree has lived inside a 22-foot insect screen, put up to keep out citrus greening disease.
The tree is about 150 years old. Eliza Tibbets planted it here in 1873, one of two young trees the US Department of Agriculture sent her. The variety itself had reached the department three years earlier, in 1870, from Bahia in Brazil. It is California Historical Landmark number 20 and City of Riverside Landmark number 15.
It is not a museum piece. UC Riverside and the city's Parks Department look after it together, and in December 2025 the university reported harvest time at the tree, with the old orange in good health and still bearing.
It stands on a small landmark plot at the corner of Magnolia and Arlington avenues, free to visit at any time. You see it through the screen now, which takes some getting used to: the photograph on this page was taken before the tent went up. The Chicago White Sox redwood in Low Park is about 400 metres away, an easy walk.
Photo: Eric T. Gunther (CC BY 3.0)
Redwood (Sequoioideae sp., species not confirmed) · ~110 years · Low Park, Riverside
On 25 March 1914 the Chicago White Sox played an exhibition game in Riverside, against the Los Angeles Angels, and planted a redwood. It is still in Low Park, more than 110 years later.
The exact date and the game come from a local history site; the marker gives only the year. By 1927 the tree was almost 40 feet tall, and the club's owner, Charles Comiskey, had a tablet put up beside it that year. The city later made it City of Riverside Landmark number 60, which is a fair honour for a tree whose only planting crew were professional ballplayers.
Two things we cannot tell you. The sources call it only a redwood, without saying whether it is a coast redwood, a giant sequoia or something else; if you can tell from the needles or the cones, let us know. And the most recent sign of it is a single photograph taken in August 2026, which shows it standing but says nothing more about its health. A second sighting would help.
Low Park sits at the head of Magnolia and Palm avenues, free and open, about 400 metres from the Parent Navel Orange Tree, so the two make a short walk.
Mexican Fan Palm (Washingtonia robusta) · ~120 years · Victoria Avenue, Riverside
Theodore Roosevelt planted this palm on 7 May 1903, on a visit to Riverside. The tablet beneath it says 8 May. The local historians who checked the dates say the tablet is wrong, and the tablet has been saying it since 1965.
The Native Daughters of the Golden West put that tablet up on 27 March 1965, and its text calls the tree a Queen Victoria palm. It is a Mexican fan palm, Washingtonia robusta, as a local history site that researched the visit records. The city made it City of Riverside Landmark number 64, and it stands on Victoria Avenue, itself listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
The practical problem is that it has company. The palm shares a small piece of land near Myrtle Street with five other palms, and nothing about the trunks themselves tells you which of the six a president planted. The tablet does: the Roosevelt Palm is the one standing over it. We do not have a photograph we can be sure shows the right trunk, so if you visit, a picture that includes the tablet would help the next person.
The most recent report, from October 2025, has it still standing along Victoria Avenue. It is on the public street frontage and free to see at any hour, about three kilometres from the Parent Navel Orange Tree.
Plane (Platanus sp.) · La Paz Lane, Riverside
Riverside has listed a sycamore growing in the middle of a road as one of its official landmarks. It is City of Riverside Landmark number 65, and it stands on the median island where La Paz Lane meets Bubbling Well Road, on the edge of Fairmount Park.
That listing is almost all anyone has written down about it, and we would rather say so than dress it up. The landmark list names it the Native Sycamore and gives no species, no age, no measurement and no story of how it came to be honoured. The word native points towards the California sycamore, Platanus racemosa, but nothing we could find confirms it, so we list it as a sycamore of unknown species. If you know it, or know why the city picked this tree, tell us.
What we can say is that it was standing in July 2026, when a photographer recorded it on the island. The tree is best seen from the pavement rather than from the island itself, because crossing to it means stepping into traffic.
It is on public land and free to look at, about six kilometres north of the Parent Navel Orange Tree.